Palin-Backed Candidate Plagiarizes Obama Speech

Sarah Palin has had an unlucky month for endorsements. As The Guardian's
Richard
Adams reports, Palin-endorsed candidates like Rand
Paul and Nikki
Haley have fallen under serious scrutiny or endured accusations
of unethical behavior. Idaho candidate Vaughn Ward is no
exception.

Palin stopped
in Idaho to endorse Ward as the GOP nominee to challenge
Democratic incumbent Walt Minnick in Idaho's first congressional
district. Unfortunately for Palin, Ward has been subject to his own
controversy after apparently plagiarizing a speech from another politician: Barack
Obama. More specifically, the congressional hopeful cribbed a passage nearly word-for-word from Obama's famous speech at the 2004 Democratic National
Convention, a speech which made him a household name.

"Palin's
endorsement is seen as something of great value among Republicans,"
writes Adams. "But the string of unfortunate events that occurred not
long after Palin has given her support makes one wonder if there isn't a 'reverse Midas touch' effect: that rather than turning things to gold,
Palin instead turns everything she touches into ... well, the opposite
of gold."

This article is from the archive of our partner The Wire.

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Jared Keller is a journalist based in New York. He has written for Bloomberg Businessweek, Pacific Standard, and Al Jazeera America, and is a former associate editor for The Atlantic.